Shopping, Freshers Game, and Arthur's Seat Take 2

Trip Start Sep 09, 2008
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Trip End Dec 20, 2008


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Flag of United Kingdom  , Scotland,
Tuesday, October 7, 2008

This past week was full of classes, shopping, and rugby.  I went to my first practicals and was both happy and horrified.  The GEP Practical I did was not bad - an example of Darcy's Law in action, measuring porosity and permeability of a soil sample; somewhat elementary, but still fun.  On the other hand, the NH practical had me stunned and asking, "are you serious?" for some time.  The assistants were disorganized and unprepared, and then the whole hour was spent teaching us how to make a chart for the assignment, which in itself was only to look at graphs of precipitation levels in the UK and then write down the changes in the colors...More irritating busy-work than a learning experience.  So, I immediately went to go see my DOS to see about switching classes, only to find that he was out all week, so I had to find someone else in room 101.  Despite the room he resides in, after I wandered around the basement of the Grant Institute for 20 minutes and finally found him, the guy I went to see was helpful.  I decided to attend a class of geochemistry to see what it was like to see if I wanted to switch to that instead.  After some discussion, I decided to stick with NH, hoping that it becomes more interesting...It is much easier than the geochem class I went to, and I want to have time to do things other than schoolwork.

Apart from my King's Buildings adventures, I explored the wonderful world of shopping in Edinburgh.  I had to...well, was supposed to, find an outfit to wear out for the rugby fresher's initiation.  In effort to find cute clothing suitable for a baby, I went into Jenners and to all the discount shops along Nicolson St.  There are quite a few, which is a really neat aspect of Edinburgh that is different from home.  There are not really single mammoth stores, but little stores instead, and many of them with profits used to support some sort of cause such as cancer research, heart foundations, or animal shelters.  Very cool.  I ended up buying a big nightie shirt for about 3 pounds - not bad.  Add in a blanket, pig-tails, and sucked thumb, and I was set.

Saturday was finally a rugby day with the fresher's game vs. Newcastle.  There was a misty rain, and the ground was nice and soft because of it, so a good gound to tackle on.  I was probably the most experienced player on the pitch, so of course I did well...ha.  I only embarrassed myself twice when I tried to drop-kick the ball.  Note to self, work on drop-kicks as well.  I started at fullback, but wasn't really getting to do much, so then I got to move to scrum half, which was a fun change of pace.  I don't usually get to go hit people, but this time I did, so I had a lot of fun with it.  I didn't score a try : ( , but I did assist one, so I'll take it.  After the game was over, the initiations began...which meant a lot of drinking.  We had to visit 4 stations, running a somersaulting to each.  I will not give the details, but it was crazy, fun, and I was fine afterwards.  After that, we went to Rush, the team's sponsor bar, for some sandwiches and more games.  Eventually, we all went home and to sleep.

The next morning, I felt fine, and some of my flatmates and I went to climb Arthur's seat.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was a good day to do it.  The rest of the day, I think I just worked on homework - my first lab report was due today and the next is due friday, and I need to come up with an essay topic for NSG...So, that is what I am going to go do now...Hopefully I will be using my day off tomorrow to go on a short trip to Stirling!  I will definitely update soon with pictures for that.  Cheers!
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Comments

eddad24
eddad24 on Oct 8, 2008 at 03:33PM

2 Cool !
Thanks for the update - and some more great pics. It sounds like you are doing lots and having fun, so way to go. I made loots of comments on the pics, so I can keep this short.

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